Chevy stops Volt production (temporarily ...)

If that's the case, my little calculations have to change, as every GMC plant is going to have to send money into the Volt program for each truck and SUV it produces. It adds in interesting incentive to keep the Volt going! Perverse, I suppose, but it would be a reason to keep the concept going forward.

 

The big cafe time for gm is 2016, when the cafe is higher on those silverados. Cafe is a big consideration for developing more efficient vehicles for the future

 

Well, looks like a sucker bit ...

GM losing $49,000 on every Volt sold, but will make it up on volume! | PriusChat

Sometimes I just want to write a headline like "Obama adopts bin Laden's children" just to see who reposts it.

 

You are right, GM is actually getting its' money's worth from the Chevy Volt - on the U.S. Taxpayers' dime!

DBCassidy

 

Oh, I almost forgot about the clock: tic toc, tic toc, tic toc.

DBCassidy

 

Yea, the workers get a lot of fishing time @ 90% pay!

DBCassidy

 

Facts: GM (Government Motors) was caught off guard the the gen1 Prius was launched into the world. GM had to scramble to try to outdo the Prius. Hence what you got: the Volt.

DBCassidy

 

Long story short, GM faces a serious dilemma. The explosive commentary online today about cost verses price draws attention to that. The situation we feared is now a reality.

We were led to believe Volt would take the industry by storm in 2010, a design which would "leap frog" Prius in every respect... because it was a "vastly superior" technology. That obviously didn't happen.

Now here comes a number of automakers offering plug-in hybrids, including Toyota, Ford, and Honda. It's exposing the difference between want & need.

GM's heavy dependence upon financial incentives to sell the only high-efficiency vehicle they have to offer makes the bad situation even worse. What are we waiting for? Who will actually benefit from it? How will the next generation solve the long list of needs to fulfill?

It's an ugly problem that's quickly growing worse.

 

You mean the massive welfare state of current affairs in this country? The market will adjust and come back.

DBCassidy

 

GM is in that "sinking" mode.

DBCassidy

 

You mean like it has in Europe, riots and all?

 

Yes, we all know that you will jump for joy if the Volt is killed. After all, it was big bad ol' GM that built it, not Toyota. The Volt was supposed to be the next step in Toyota's evolution of the Prius. If the car would have been the Toyota Volt, you would be waxing eloquently here and on your blog site about how it is the next coming of automobiles.

All one has to do is pull up your old archived blogs from your own website to see how Toyota followed a similar path in far better economic times. You stood fast in basking in the "glory" that "every single Prius" built was sold, despite the fact that they sold in similar numbers, and Toyota lost money on every sale.

You cannot keep damning one car maker for ending up on a similar path on the road to their new game changing vehicle that you praised another for.

 

Bob Lutz was on Kudlow tonite discussing (or should I say dissing) this article. He feels the R&D costs will be recouped in future sales...he mentions a number of new models including a Caddy coming out based on the Volt. In the end, IIRC he did say he thought there would be a several hundred dollar R&D loss per vehicle eventually sold...

 

Joking aside, to me worrying part is that analysts agree how it costs 65k-72k to actually build Volt (without calculating cost of R&D).

And you cant compare Volt and 1998 Prius... it is not 1998 anymore. Today hybrids are common and Toyota alone builds 1.1m per year. It is not sucess anymore just to get anything out of the door, like GM did with Volt. Prius ended up being big sucess, Volt ended up being big failure.

 

according to some people you are wrong, GM is doing as awesome as ever and Volt is #2 selling hybrid in the usa....

Surpising then is the price of GM stock... cant the analysts see how good it is doing?

oops.

 

I would like to say once again, poor Volt.

 

So, you are saying that it is A-OK for Toyota to need six years to break even on an entirely new concept in vehicles, yet GM cannot? Why the double standard?

 

Unfortunately, it is a different economic time. More unfortunately, GM didn't adjust for the times.

I don't know that GM is on the same road Toyota traveled. If they are, Toyota designed and built the vehicle to travel down the road, and they found away to pay for it. If GM is on that same road, only time will tell whether they designed a "game changing vehicle." It already is apparent GM wasn't able to pay for development of the vehicle, much less the tolls.

Using the same analogy, I don't know that GM's reconnaissance was up to the task of finding the right road or the right way to travel it. Toyota spent many, many years working things out, and they rejected the "electromotive" design (battery lead with and ICE to keep the charge up) in favor of the HSD design. I don't know all of the reasons, but they had something to do with the size and weight ratio of the powerplants. When batteries eventually come down in size, weight and cost, the whole scenario will change. Then we'll have another game changer, and it may not involve any ICE. In the meantime, it is clear Toyota's analysis was correct for the time.

Where did this number come from? I saw only the information in the Reuters article, and it suggested the production costs (not including R&D) would range from $20,000 to $32,000. As I noted in an earlier post, this range of costs could prove to be low enough to allow the Volt to succeed or high enough to push the project to premature failure.

I've got to agree with everything in this post except the premature conclusion about the Volt's failure. If it is a failure, we may know it within a year. Still, there is a chance either the car or the concept will survive. If so, it could be a game changer not necessarily on the technology end but as either a way to get American acceptance of something other than a big gas guzzler or a case study on how not to do it.

 

The technology approach is a moving target. If Li-Ion had been available for the first generation of Prius, it may have been "electromotive". By available I mean both price and supply. It is not coincidence that the PiP didn't hit until Li-Ion was available.

 

I wish the Volt well but it was a somewhat flawed idea that it would sell like hotcakes at that price point. It's a good car and I hope it continues in production but I don't like that it was foisted on the public owing largely to a political agenda. That's not how it's supposed to be done in America. Let the market dictate automobile design and manufacture solely based on actual demand from the get-go. That's what Toyota did with the Prius and without taxpayer funds. GM got itself in trouble partly by overproducing big SUVs after demand for them was already cooling.